What Should I Be Aware of When Financing the Sale of My Home?
Video Summary
I am considering financing the sale of my home. What should I be aware of? Under Florida, you’re required to – when you sell your home you can take back a note in mortgage. And you cannot take back a land contract as they have in other states, because Florida is a judicial foreclosure state that requires notes and mortgages, land contracts, agreements for deed, to be foreclosed upon. So, the first thing you need to understand is, what’s the remedy in the event the person fails to make the payment?
The foreclosure process and the cost of going through a foreclosure is in the neighborhood of $3500.00 to $5000.00 with the filing fees and the court costs, and that’s if the matter is uncontested. The time period to go through the foreclosure process is estimated to be about nine months, if it is not contested. So, that should be a major consideration. I do not suggest that you do owner financing unless you get at least 20 percent of the money down. So, if you’re selling the property for $100,000.00, you would need to have a minimum of $20,000.00.
If you’re selling property that is of lesser value, you need to be aware of the cost involved as far as foreclosure and the time period, because you won’t be getting any money. Also, you would have to pay back due taxes if you foreclosed and took the property back, and it’s very hard to protect your property from vandalism or malicious conduct by the borrower if you start foreclosure. So, all these should be considered as to how much of a down payment you should receive before you consider doing the owner financing. I’d be happy to talk to you about what kind of interest rate you should be able to receive, and as far as owner financing is concerned. You cannot circumvent the foreclosure process by escrow and deeds. You cannot do land contracts and not record them and simply tear them up and have the people removed, since Florida is a judicial foreclosure state.
So, if you’d like to explore owner financing, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
How Much are Estate Taxes in Florida?
Video Summary
Hi! I’m Chip Waller. How much are estate taxes in Florida?
Well, you’re looking at Santa here, there are no estate taxes in the State of Florida so you can leave an unlimited amount to whoever you like and there are no estate taxes.
How about the Federal government? Well, the recent tax law provides that you can leave up to over $5,000,000.00 and there are no estate taxes that are due to the Federal government.
If you are married you can leave an unlimited amount to your spouse. And between the two of you, you can leave upwards to $10,000,000.00 jointly. That takes some – a little bit of planning. But, unfortunately, for me, I haven’t happened to have too many clients that have over $5,000,000.00 or even have the $5,000,000.00 to worry about the estate taxes.
Now, if you own real estate outside the State of Florida there may be estate taxes that are owed to another state where the decedent owned real estate, such as North Carolina, New York or whatever other state other than Florida.
But the good news is, Florida does not have an estate tax.
So, if you have some questions about an estate or want to do some estate planning, or have an estate to be administered, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you!
If I Inherit Money, Do I Have to Pay Tax on the Money?
Video Summary
Hi! I’m Chip Waller. The question is, do I have to pay inheritance tax on any money that I receive from an estate?
The answer is no. Estate taxes are paid by the estate, so you may be paying them indirectly because it may reduce the amount of the monies that you received as a result of paying an estate tax.
I am not aware, although cannot say conclusively, as to having no inheritance tax in any state. But in Florida there is no inheritance tax and, also, there are no estate taxes. So as far as I know that, well, in fact, there are no inheritance taxes if you live here in Florida that you have to pay.
So if you have any more questions about taxes and estates, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you!
Does a Designated Trustee Need to Hire a Lawyer?
Video Summary
Hi! I’m Chip Waller. Does a designated trustee need to hire a lawyer to administer a Trust?
Usually the designated trustee is a successor to a decedent. So the answer is, I suggest that you contact an attorney, like me, and find out what your duties and responsibilities are as a successor trustee as well as can you be held liable if you don’t follow the Florida statute for the Florida Trust Code.
Some of the things that you need to do as a successor trustee is obtain a Federal Identification Number because you’re dealing with monies that are not yours, and you don’t want to have to report any income under your Social Security number because it’s not your money or your income. And you need to file what they call a Fiduciary Tax Return, a 1041.
Next as a successor trustee you’re required to send a copy of the Trust to all the beneficiaries. And that’s sometimes not what anybody wants to know about, but particularly if there’s a distribution or if you’re supposed to pay income for life to someone. But everyone who is a beneficiary under the Trust is to get a copy of the Trust document.
You also usually have many questions about, well, should I pay all the creditors? Well, and now can I – when can I distribute all this money and not be responsible for the creditors’ claims? That’s usually a fairly tough question.
And one of the other responsibilities that you have, and potential liability for, is doing an accounting. So you initially have to prepare an inventory and send out, to all the beneficiaries, an inventory of all the assets.
Once they get that, well then they’re entitled to an annual accounting which sets forth how much income and what transaction took place. And if you fail to do that, you have liability for many, many, many years to come and have potential liability.
So, as my recommendation, that before – if you’re designated as a trustee of a Trust, that you consult with an attorney to find out what your duties, responsibilities and liabilities are as far as serving as a successor trustee, and decide if you want to undertake those responsibilities and potential liability.
If you have any questions give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thank you!
What Are The Rights of a Widowed Spouse in Homestead Property?
Video Summary
Hi! I’m Chip Waller. What are the rights of a widowed spouse in homestead property?
In order to start this analysis, to be able to give you advice, we need to know how title to this real estate was held. Was it held in your joint names as husband and wife? If so, the property automatically passes to the surviving spouse.
If the property was just in the decedent’s name, we then need to determine if there were any minor children, adult children of the decedent, as well as the surviving spouse.
If there were no children surviving – if there are no children of the deceased spouse, and he owned the homestead property just in his name, well, then the homestead property would pass to the surviving spouse outright.
If, however, the deceased spouse was survived by children, then the surviving spouse receives a life estate in the property with the remainder interest going to the children.
Now there is an election that can be made by the surviving spouse if she does not want to continue to live there or cannot afford the house during her lifetime in that she would be responsible for taxes, insurance and maintaining the property. She can elect to take a half interest in the property if the decedent was survived by children. And if she makes that election she must do that, I believe, it’s within six months of the date of death of the deceased spouse.
So if you have any questions about homestead property give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you!
- Published in Real Estate, Videos